Static elastography using ultrasound is a technique of pressing a probe against a tissue to apply physical vibration, and displaying the degree (displacement and strain) of vibration as numerical values superimposed on an image. At present, a static elastography technique that is widely used clinically is a technique of vibrating a probe by hand.
This technique has difficulty in quantifying vibration (pressure). In addition, the direction of vibration does not coincide with an image surface, which results in incorrect elastography results, in some cases. Furthermore, this technique is difficult to apply especially to cases where the probe cannot be directly operated by hand, such as in laparoscopic surgery, for example.
Meanwhile, for example, Patent Literature 1 suggests implementation of elastography using a vibrator.